


Episode 6

by ChokolatteJedi



Category: Antiheroes (Cracked.com)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Superpowers, Yuletide, Yuletide 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 12:37:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2812241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if episode 5 had a slightly different ending?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Episode 6

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amaresu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaresu/gifts).



> Huge thanks to my beta, Leapersonata!

**PREVIOUSLY, ON ANTIHEROES...**

"We have to help save people!" Ken whined.

…

One frowned at the group. "Like if you wanted to use your power to fight crime or help our organization-"

"We don't!" Melinda interrupted.

"If you did; no thanks."

…

Beth began speaking before the opening jingle finished. "Reports continue to flood in about people behaving in strange, even impossible ways. Authorities continue to insist that there is nothing wrong, but do ask witnesses to report such occurrences immediately."

…

Ian stared up at Ken. "What's it feel like to kill a man?"

...

Tim blinked into existence. "When am I?"

AntiherOes

It was something that Tim would never understand. Despite having the power to travel through time and space, he also seemed to have the power - or curse, more likely - to miss the exact time and place he was aiming for completely. And so he watched his former friends say goodbye to his body, see a giant fireball, and decide irrevocably to become heroes. Or something like that. The name was still up for debate.

AntiherOes

After swearing their pact, which consisted of Ken reciting some oath that popped into his head and the others eventually dropping their hands from the center as he droned on and on about virtue and protecting people and how really unfair it was that his superpower was an absence of superpowers but not in a cool way like that kid from the X-Men movie who negated powers, or the other one with the serum, and come to think of it there was really a major plot hole in that movie, because... Where was- Oh, right, yes, after swearing the pact, Melinda grabbed Ken and jumped to the roof. Hector grabbed Ian and sped up the fire escape after them.

Ian continued to grumble for a few minutes about not having his own transportation power, while Ken excitedly pointed out potential 'hotbeds of crime.'

Suddenly, their perusal of the city streets was interrupted by a huge fireball screaming across the sky.

Ken, Melinda, and Hector turned as one to face Ian, but he held up his hands defensively. "Not my fire powers!"

"You guys, someone could be in trouble in that building!" Ken declared.

"We should find the guy who can shoot fireballs!" Hector overruled him. "That sounds like a fun guy!"

"Or girl!" Melinda snapped.

"Or villain!" Ken said. The others turned. "Think about it! Why would he shoot a fireball into that building unless he was a villain?"

"Because fire is fucking hard to control at first?" Ian snapped.

"Because it looks so cool!" Hector added.

"Because that's where they've chained him to a desk and he hates his boss and wants to destroy the building so he can stay home and watch TV?" Melinda said.

"Guys!" Ken said.

"Ooh, insurance payout!" Ian said as the possibilities occurred to him. "Maybe I should torch my apartment!"

"But you borrowed my Guitar Hero controller last week," Hector immediately protested.

"He'd totally take out the stuff he wanted before he burned it, Hector," Melinda snapped. "Otherwise what's the point?"

"Guys!" Ken said a little louder.

"The point is money for new stuff, duh," Ian replied.

"Like a whole new console! And a big screen TV," Hector said dreamily.

"Ian, you picked up most of your furniture on the side of the road," Melinda taunted. "No insurance company would pay you for that crap."

"That's why you lie about how much your stuff is worth," Ian explained.

 **"Guys!"** Ken finally yelled. The other three turned to look at him. "Does anyone remember the fireball that just crashed into that building?"

"Of course we do," Melinda replied, just as Ian said, "What do you think we're talking about?"

"What fireball?" Hector asked. The other three turned back to look at him. Melinda gestured sarcastically at the building they had seen, which now featured flames shooting through the windows on the top three floors. "Ooooh, that fireball. What about it?"

Ken pulled his red mask back from his face, revealing a look of desperation. Well, more desperation than usual. "Guys, we have to go over there and help people. We have to save them. We just took an oath about this!"

"Those agents did tell us not to get involved in anything," Melinda reminded them.

"Oath!" Ken replied.

"I can hear the sirens already," Ian added, "so the calling the cops part of my plan has already been implemented."

"Oath!" Ken insisted.

"Wait, I don't hear any sirens," Hector complained. "Oh my god, do you have super hearing?"

"Do I?" Ian scrunched up his face in concentration. "I wond-"

 **"Oath!"** Ken screamed, cutting them all off. "We swore an oath! Just now! Five minutes ago!"

"More like ten, now," Melinda began, but Ken was on a roll.

"No! We swore an oath, and we are going over there to be heroes! Right now!"

Melinda glanced at Ian, and then both shrugged. Grabbing Ken again, Melinda jumped into the air. Ian allowed Hector to grab him as well and they took off too.

A second later, Tim appeared on the roof. "Guys! Guys! Don't go up against this guy by yours-" he trailed off, looking around the empty roof. He peered over the side, but his coworkers were nowhere to be seen. "Damn it." He disappeared again.

AntiherOes

"Who's Dead Missile?" Ken asked, gesturing at the name spray painted on the bottom floor of the assaulted building.

"Dead Missile?" Ian repeated, yelling to be heard over the fire-engines. "His name is Dead Missile?"

"Man, our names suck," Hector replied. "I vote we go back to the office and try to think of better ones."

"No, we have to save people!" Ken insisted as a firefighter pushed past him.

"All in favor?" Ian asked.

Hector raised his hand. "Ay- wait. Are we voting on the better names thing or the saving people thing?" 

Ian shrugged. "The names thing."

"Okay, Aye!"

"Aye!" Melinda added.

"No!" Ken complained.

"Sorry buddy, the 'Aye's have it," Ian patted him on the shoulder. Once. Awkwardly. Then he stopped and turned back to Hector, ready to be zipped away.

Ken continued to protest, but Melinda just grabbed him and jumped.

Within seconds they were back at the office, Melinda having created a new hole in the ceiling when she landed. Ken was nursing a sore shoulder from the same bungled landing and nursing an even bigger resentment for being pulled away from the new villain.

AntiherOes

Within a few hours, Hector was trying to drink and smoke at the same time without spilling his alcohol or getting his cigarette wet; Ken was still sulking; Melinda was lying on the floor beneath her desk sighing; and Ian was clinging to the ceiling, having developed the ability to crawl on the walls roughly twenty minutes earlier.

For a moment it seemed that Hector had succeeded in his quest, but then he began to choke and hack violently. "I think I inhaled… the alcohol… instead of the smoke!" he gasped out. "Fuck that hurts!"

"Okay, now I really don't know what to call myself," Ian declared once he could be heard again. He thought he should be getting a head-rush from being upside down, but apparently that was a built-in feature of the power. So far it was proving to be much better than his demon-face power.

"At least if you lose your grip and fall you won't die," Melinda piped up.

"The Spider Healer Man," Ken muttered, still disgruntled, but unable to resist the urge to name something.

"Who would have thought that naming something would be so hard?" Hector complained, freezing his cigarette and tossing it into the trash. "This is why I'm never having kids."

"Is that the only reason?" Melinda snarked. "I thought you needed to be with a woman for that."

Hector bristled at the charge. "I'll have you know that I have been with a woman plenty of- just last- more than once!"

"I wonder if these changes would be passed on to your kids in your DNA?" Ken wondered aloud, pulled out of his funk despite himself.

"Those creepy secret agents might know, but I don't think we should ask them," Hector said.

Tim finally managed to blink in to the time and place he wanted, but unfortunately one of his other powers chose that moment to manifest itself. Instead of warning his friends not to try to become heroes, he simply rained on them in all of his little nimbus cloud glory. Thoroughly frustrated, he popped back to another time and place.

"What the hell was that?" Ian asked, picking himself up off the floor and realigning his elbow, which had had an untimely meeting with a desk on his way down.

"Raining man," Ken replied, looking very much like a drowned cat. He ignored the middle finger that Ian flashed his way.

"Raining men, more like it!" Hector replied.

Melinda cautiously peeked out from beneath her own desk, where she had managed to stay dry. "I think that was... Tim," she said. "I got a flash of his thoughts. He was annoyed."

"Tim was always annoyed at us," Ian snarked.

"Tim was very polite!" Hector said.

Ian rolled his eyes. "Saying please doesn't make you less annoyed. It just makes you more of a pushover."

"Pushover Guy!" Ken replied, almost automatically.

"Okay, Ken isn't allowed to name things anymore," Ian replied.

"Guys, let's just use the internet to look up names!" Melinda said, exasperated.

"Yes, so we can get back to going out there and saving people!" Ken said, immediately refocusing on the task.

"Right, that. Or other things," Hector agreed vaguely. He exchanged a look with Melinda, who just shrugged.

Soon they were all hunched over their computers, appearing to be hard at work at something, if not actually at their jobs of calling people.

AntiherOes

**NEXT TIME, ON ANTIHEROES...**

"Tim?" Beth looked all around before turning to her cameraman. "You saw him too, didn't you?"

...

Seconds later, their boss walked in. "Where the hell is Tim?" He demanded.

...

"The procedure worked, Sir. You should be better able to control your powers." One said.

"Or at least, stop causing internal damage," Two added.

Tim smiled. "Great. I've always wondered about those Ancient Roman orgies." And he disappeared.

...

Ian stared deeply into Melinda's eyes. "I think we need to try that whole 'superpowers passed down to the child' theory right now," he said.

"Technically that's a hypothesis until tested," she replied.

...

"Guys! You can't be heroes!" Tim shouted as soon as he appeared. Then he glanced around and found that he was in the bathroom. And that the bathroom was empty. And that it was apparently the women's bathroom. "Damn it."


End file.
